112 HISTORY OF THE 



of their character, interest, and future happiness, 

 being all involved in the event, might have induced 

 them to struggle, even to the very verge of life ; 

 but the same sense of honour, and the same spirit 

 of emulation, cannot, at least in anything like the 

 same ratio, be ascribed to the race-horse. If his 

 own acting powers be unequal to those of others 

 opposed to him in the race, he yields to that 

 superiority ; although it must be admitted, that 

 what are called sluggish horses will not try to 

 exert themselves to the utmost, unless urged to it 

 by the spur and whip, and others, when spurred and 

 whipped, slacken instead of increasing their speed. 



The final result of this discussion then, is, that 

 when, as has been previously suggested, we speak 

 of such horses as King Herod, Highflyer, or 

 Eclipse, having transmitted their blood to the past 

 and present generations of running horses, we can 

 only admit that they have transmitted that true 

 formation of parts necessary to enable them to run 

 races at a prodigious rate of speed, and to endure 

 the severity of training for them." 



Much discussion has taken place in the different 

 sporting magazines, on the question of what con- 

 stitutes the blood or thorough bred horse. The 

 purport of our foregoing observations on this 

 subject may be thus shortly summed up. We 

 consider the term blood, or thorough-bred 

 horse, to imply one whose pedigree can be traced 



